the big kids' playground

Elise talking about the 5th grade and all her memories made me think about my pre-Tucson adventures. The more I think about it, the more I realize I really hated it.

My days of Catholic school were filled with me beginning to try figuring out who I was. And, lo and behold, I think it was in fifth garde when it started to sink in. After moving back from El Paso, I went back to my old school. Since there was only one class per graduating year, it was easy to see who was still there and who had left. For the most part, the 40 kids in my first grade class were the same 37 kids in my fifth grade class. Oh sure, some came and some left, but it was in essence the same people. Mrs. Williams was the fifth grade teacher; her husband owned the local mom-n-pop pharmacy. I liked Mrs. Williams. She was cool. She always made jokes about how old she was. I figured she just added 100 to it, though.

Ugh, recess. As fifth graders, we now got to play on the playground on the other side of the school. So it was a brave and exciting new feeling. Until the freshman complex sets in. We were stuck playing one game a week; we alternated with the other grades. My fave was tetheball- I was actually pretty good at that. But the rest of them I really didn't care for. I remember spending most of my days just wandering around, watching the other grades play, sitting on the aluminum benches next to the chain link fence. Lunch was like this, too. When I was our school's runner up in the georaphy bee (as a fifth grader this was really impressive, going to a 1st-8th) I would tag along the school winner, a sixth grader whom I recently found out courtesy of facebook goes to ASU and lives the greek highlife, trying to think of questions and stuff to quiz each other on. I liked it. In retrospect, I think she hated it.

Then there were the people who would throw ice cubes at me. I never did figure out who did it, but I think the PE teacher was perectly fine with it. He was sitting right by them I reckon. One time I went to him to complain and he chuckled about it. Stupid musclehead. Hell, he was probably throwing them at me too.

And like Elise said, i didn't have a music of my own. All I had were the 2 radio stations in town: country and 70's rock/pop -to this day I am still sick of the "Pina Colada" song- and the old records my mom used to have, mostly club music/ R&B that she and her friends would go dancing to while she was still single and not knocked up. She had one cassette, though, that I really liked for some reason. REM's "Losing my religion" just seemed like a weird song for me to like. Mom often quipped about it's paradoxiness, me going to catholic school and all, but there was just something about the song that had me and wouldnt let go. True, it's the first music video that I remember seeing. Also the first songs I learned all the words to, though I don't think I really understood what they meant. And then when Stipe talks about the fantasies flailing around, and he's actually flailing his arms, it had me glued. I didn't get the rest of the video, though. The guy sticking his finger in God's chest and moving it around confused me more than anything. But I think it was that mandolin part that I liked the best. Just that it was like nothing I had heard before.

And now I see it again courtesy on the internet and I think I understand it now. Of course I remembered little about the whole televangelism of the late 80's, but it all of a sudden had this new context that makes as much sense for me now as it did when it originally came out for others. I think the message is pretty self explanatory, but it just has a lot more significance for me now. Thanks Elise for helping me uncover old wounds. That felt good.